E-books
ARTFL | EEBO | netLibrary | Thesaurus Linguae Graecae | E-books on the Internet
The library offers a variety of e-books and reading devices. Many of the titles available in electronic format are cataloged in the library's online catalog, Phebe, and can be located by performing a Title Search. Listed below are several collections to which the library subscribes.
ARTFL
The American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language (ARTFL) consists of nearly 2000 texts, ranging from classic works of French literature to various kinds of non-fiction prose and technical writing. The eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries are about equally represented, with a smaller selection of seventeenth century texts as well as some medieval and Renaissance texts. Also recently added is a Provençal database that includes 38 texts in their original spellings. Genres include novels, verse, theater, journalism, essays, correspondence, and treatises. Subjects include literary criticism, biology, history, economics, and philosophy. In most cases standard scholarly editions were used in converting the text into machine-readable form, and the data contain page references to these editions.
Early English Books Online
"From the first book printed in English by William Caxton, through the age of Spenser and Shakespeare and the tumult of the English Civil War, Early English Books Online (EEBO) contains over 125,000 titles listed in Pollard & Redgrave's Short-Title Catalogue (1475-1640), Wing's Short-Title Catalogue (1641-1700), and the Thomason Tracts (1640-1661). "
netLibrary
Over 4000 titles are available for online reading via netLibrary. To see a list of available titles, search for the author "netLibrary" in the online catalog. Books are available for previewing for 15 minutes, or may be checked out for 4 hours at a time for longer reading online. When using the search function, if you receive a message that a book is not currently available, it means that the library's copy of the book is being accessed by another user.
Users must create a profile before they may check out online books. Profiles must be created using a computer on the Bowdoin College campus, or by using this link. Once an profile is created you may use it from on or off campus without restrictions. Note that the netLibrary Online eBook Reader requires version 4.01 and above of Microsoft® Internet Explorer or version 4.76 and above of Netscape Navigator.
Thesaurus Linguae Graecae
"Founded in 1972, the TLG has already collected and digitized most literary texts written in Greek from Homer to the fall of Byzantium in AD 1453. Its goal is to create a comprehensive digital library of Greek literature from antiquity to the present era. "
Bibliography of Free Internet Accessible E-books
- Alex: A Catalog of Electronic Texts
- A collection of digital documents collected in the subject areas of English literature, American literature, and Western philosophy.
- The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
- Searchable by keyword.
- The English Server
- CMU's project - 10,000+ texts - many disciplines.
- Internet Classics Archive
- 400 classical Greek and Roman texts in English.
- Internet Public Library's Online Texts Collection
- "The IPL Online Texts Collection contains over 20,000 titles that can be browsed by author, by title, or by Dewey Decimal Classification. They can also be searched."
- National Academy Press
- Over 2000 titles free online.
- 19th Century African American Women Writers
- "African American Women Writers of the 19th Century is a digital collection of some 52 published works by 19th-century black women writers. A part of the Digital Schomburg, this collection provides access to the thought, perspectives and c reative abilities of black women as captured in books and pamphlets published prior to 1920."
- The Online Books Page
- More than 2700 English works.
- Project Bartleby Library
- Includes English language poetry, fiction, nonfiction and a variety of reference works such as dictionaries, style manuals and books of quotations.
- Project Gutenburg
- A volunteer effort to bring non copyrighted literature to the web. Includes over 5,000 titles.
- University of Virginia Electronic Text Center
- Over 5000 Publicly accessible titles. Also includes free ebooks for the palm and microsoft readers.